The use of electrical circuit boards has become commonplace in recent decades. Such printed circuit boards typically are generally planar in shape and include a plurality of electrical connections and components, and can be used for a multitude of purposes.
As may be understood, there is often a need to test such circuit boards. Such testing can be done with the use of circuit board testing apparatuses which test the electrical integrity of printed circuit boards under test (BUTs). As each BUT has a plurality of downwardly directed accessible nodes, the testing apparatuses typically include support means for removably supporting the BUTs, test circuitry including a plurality of upwardly directed channel nodes below the support means, and some means of connecting the channel nodes to the BUT nodes, the connection means including a universal board carrying probes in a universal grid pattern, means to activate selective probes, and a translator board (also known as a test fixture" to make electrical connections between the upper and lower conductors in different patterns. In many cases, vacuum is used to hold the circuit boards down on the test fixtures as they are being tested. An example of such a configuration is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,024, entitled: "Test Pin Assembly For Circuit Board Tester", owned by Teradyne, Inc., of Boston, Mass.
As there are many different types of circuit boards which have different types of electrical connections, each circuit board tends to be associated with a different test fixture. Therefore, if more than one circuit board is tested atop a particular test apparatus, it is necessary to place different associated test fixtures atop the test apparatus. If many different circuit boards are tested at a particular facility, that facility may need to store that many (often hundreds) test fixtures, which is often done by using multi-level horizontal surface shelving.
Such test fixtures typically weigh in the range of 50-200 pounds. Furthermore, as there are many different manufacturers of test fixtures as well as different manufacturers of test apparatuses, mechanical automation has been rendered difficult.
The known prior art addresses this situation by utilizing manual labor; a person manually picks up the test fixtures and moves it from one location to another. As the tester is approximately the size of a workbench, and the shelving used can take a variety of configurations, there is a risk of back and other injury to the operator and to the test fixture during such transport.
Therefore it may be seen that there is a need in the art to provide a method and apparatus for suitably manipulating test fixtures of many different sizes and shapes back and forth between shelving and test apparatuses of many different sizes and shapes, which is simple to use, economical to manufacture, effectively and adequately handles relatively expensive test fixtures, and includes safety features.